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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 1444-1444.2

William Stanley Braithwaite papers

Overview

Papers of the African-American poet, literary critic, and editor, William Stanley Braithwaite.

Dates

  • Creation: 1897-1930

Language of Materials

Collection materials are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

There are no restrictions on physical access to this material. Collection is open for research.

Extent

10.5 linear feet (31 boxes)

Letters to Braithwaite from poets discussing their work and careers or giving permission to have their poems reprinted in one of Braithwaite's anthologies. Also included are many manuscripts of poems. Because of the comprehensive scope of Braithwaite's anthologies, these papers include letters from several hundred poets, great and small, and offer a rich resource for examining American poets from various sections of the country and at various levels of achievement. Also included are biographical sketches of poets, submitted for a directory of poets in the 1926 Anthology; permission slips; four boxes of proofs of poems appearing in the Anthology, as well as proofs of books of verse by various poets; clippings of Braithwaite's articles and reviews from the Boston Evening Transcript; and one box of pamphlets, programs, and other ephemera. Supplemental material includes manuscripts and proofs of works by Lucius Beebe, Robert Hillyer, and others and letters from Braithwaite and B. J. Brimmer Company to Edwin F. Edgett, literary editor of the Boston Evening Transcript.

Biographical / Historical

Braithwaite was an African-American poet, literary critic, and editor. He wrote reviews and criticism for the Boston Evening Transcript. From 1913 to 1929 he edited an annual Anthology of Magazine Verse. In the 1920s he was president of B.J. Brimmer Company, a Boston publishing firm.

Arrangement

Organized into the following series:

  1. I. Letters to WSB and other papers
  2. II. Manuscripts from W.S.B.'s collection
  3. III. Letters to Edwin Francis Edgett

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Manuscripts (MS Am 1444) gift of Charles H. Taylor and the Friends of the Library; received: ca. 1931.

69M-152. Manuscripts (MS Am 1444.1) purchased from William Stanley Braithwaite; received: date unknown.

78M-65. Manuscripts (MS Am 1444.2) purchased with the Thomas E. Hanley Fund; received: 1978 June.

Processing Information

Boxes 21-28 in series MS Am 1444 are minimally processed and loosely sorted in groupings of types of materials.

Processing Information

This finding aid was revised in 2024 to address outdated and harmful descriptive language. During that revision, contextualizing processing notes were added to the description of two items. For more information on reparative archival description at Harvard, see Harvard Library’s Statement on Harmful Language in Archival Description.

Title
Braithwaite, William Stanley, 1878-1962. William Stanley Braithwaite papers, 1897-1930: Guide.
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard College Library
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou01469

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
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